Turn Left
by PeacockBlue
Summary: You don't have to have seen the Dr Who episode to read this. Ed is in a foreign market and enters a fortune-teller's tent. Inside, he relives the most important decision of his life and the consequences of choosing differently. Post manga/Brotherhood.
1. Prologue

Ed was walking around a market in the capital city of Xing. It was busy, a cacophony of different sounds, smells and bright colours. The overall effect was one of overwhelming _life_.

He picked up a pink-red fruit from a nearby stall and passed over a few coins after haggling to get the initial price down from the 'bleed-those-stupid-tourists-dry' level to the more acceptable 'over-priced' range. He smiled and walked away from the grumpy owner of the stand before lifting the fruit to his nose and breathing in its sweet scent and taking a large bite. It was perfect; hovering exactly on the edge of sweet and sour to produce a perfectly tart flavour that was both refreshing and delicious, something badly needed in the sticky humidity of the Xingese air.

As he turned a corner, he heard the measured and unhurried steps that belonged to the Emperor's guard. Doubtlessly, they were in this market in order to find him after he had slipped away from that party. He smirked; Ling really should have known better than to send them after him, not to mention that his friend surely knew that the ex-alchemist would have found the reception far too tedious to attend for longer than five minutes.

As they grew closer to the corner, Ed looked up the narrow alleyway created by the brightly coloured stalls and cursed internally; this was a dead end, there was no escape to be seen. He heard their footsteps, easily picked out from the hustle and bustle of the crowds going in every direction buying everything from furniture to fruit, coming closer and, making a last-second decision, ducked into the nearest tent, his hair whisking through the doorway just as they turned the corner. He turned, startled, as he heard the sound caused by the strings of beads as they clattered against one another when an ageless-looking woman floated through into the small ante-room of her tent.

"Do you seek to learn your future, young man?" she asked, speaking with an accent that seemed to come from everywhere but nowhere at the same time. Her dark hair fell into equally dark eyes that shone with untold mysteries.

"No. No, thanks. I don't believe in that stuff. Thanks for offering."

"But it's free to young men with such lovely gold eyes," she pressed, looking up at him earnestly.

Ed raised his hand to his mouth, debating internally as to whether to accept. Eventually, he darted a glance over to the crimson flap that separated the interior of the tent from the street that was currently the only barrier preventing him from dying of boredom at the reception being held by Ling, and nodded. "Okay, fine. I'll listen to your 'prediction' of the future. Just don't expect me to believe or pay for it."

She smiled triumphantly and led him through into the main room of the tent, sitting him down and lighting several sticks of incense and two candles. All in all, it created a heavy atmosphere that made Ed feel dizzy and slightly lightheaded.

She sat down in the chair opposite him and reached out for his left hand across the table. She cradled it in her own, gently tracing the lines of his palm with her fingertips, nails occasionally scraping his skin lightly. After what seemed like half an hour of this, but was most likely only a few minutes, she spoke up.

"You are a traveller and a scholar. You have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and are prepared to do almost anything to attain it," she let his hand rest on the table and picked up his right. "You have faced much hardship and –"

"Yeah, yeah, tell me something I _don't _know." He said, irritated at her insight.

"But to see the future, one must have a firm knowledge of the past. Think back to the moment that set you on your path, that made you become who you are now. Think strongly of that day and let the memory fill your mind."

His senses befuddled by the strong incense and the heat of the tent, he did as she ordered him and thought back to that one decision that had set him on his path that had led him to where and who he was now.

**_There is more than one of the moments; I couldn't decide which was the most important decision he made so each of the following chapters has the decision as the title and you can either read all of them, or just the one(s) that interest(s) you.  
Let me know what you think in your review :)_**


	2. Acceptance

"It was the day I asked Izumi Curtis to teach my brother and me alchemy."

"Good, good. Think of that day, let your mind picture every single detail, let it fill your consciousness. Go back to that day. What was it that made this day so important?"

"Well, the river was overflowing," he replied, unable to help himself in the incense-induced haze "The whole village was working to build up the banks and, at one point, the water burst through the sandbags. She strode in, clapped her hands and huge walls grew up around the breach." He faltered in his retelling of the story and the lines between reality and memory blurred. For a second, he was in two places at once; he was sitting in the crimson tent in the centre of Xing, hot sun causing beads of sweat to form on his skin, but he was also standing in the rain next to his brother, still the taller one, even if it was only by a centimetre or two. Then his past overtook his present and he and Al looked at each other, grinning. This was what they had been waiting for! An alchemist to teach them, to help them bring back their mother!

They ran forwards, latching on to her.

"Please teach us alchemy!" Ed begged her, "Please!"

"No." she replied curtly, "I don't take students." She followed up the rebuff with a powerful throw and glared after them as they returned. Ed was thinking in his mind of methods to persuade this woman to take them in as apprentices when he seemed to hear a command.

_Accept it_, the female voice told him. _Accept her refusal._

His running faltered, his face fell, golden eyes dimming. He stopped, holding an arm out to halt his younger brother. "Come on, Al. Let's go home. There's no way we're gonna get her to accept us as students."

"But brother! This could be our only chance!"

The elder Elric turned to face the younger, wearing a sad smile. "It's fine, Al. We've done alright on our own so far, haven't we?"

"I guess…" replied Al.

_When Ed took Izumi's 'no' for an answer, he set in motion a series of events that would leave him more scarred than he otherwise would have been. Without having left for Dublith, the brothers could study with the exclusive aim of human transmutation and their local fame grew faster, drawing the military in a year earlier than they would have if Ed, the driving force of the brothers' determination, had continued to pester Izumi Curtis. They continued to teach themselves out of their father's alchemy books and, by some chance, at about the same time the newly-promoted Colonel Roy 'Flame' Mustang was preparing to go out to Resembool to investigate reports on a pair of talented brothers along with First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye, the Elric Brothers were putting the finishing touches to their array, getting ready for the moment they would finally be able to see their mother's smile._

Ed cut his finger, letting a drop of blood fall into the bowl of ingredients before doing the same to his eight-year-old brother. They both stepped out of the circle before pressing their palms onto the chalk lines. The two boys were elated in their apparent victory; they were finally going to see their mother again! And she would be so proud of them when she saw how hard they had worked to get her back. The two boys looked at each other, grinning. Then, everything went wrong. The bright light of an alchemic reaction turned a dark purple and a curved line bisected the circle they had so carefully researched and drawn. It opened, revealing a pitiless eye and small black hands reached out and grasped Ed's left leg and Al's entire body, drawing them into it.

"Al!" Ed shouted, reaching out to capture his brother's hand in his own, trying to keep his last remaining family with him. Arm outstretched, he suddenly found himself facing a white figure defined only by the shadows it cast.

"Who, who are you?"

"I am glad you asked," it replied, throwing its hands in the air and grinning. Truth, the world, god, All, One and Ed himself. No sooner than Truth had finished its introduction, the Gate behind the ten-year-old Ed opened with an ominous whoosh of not-quite air.

He had dared to knock on the door of Truth and so it was opened. He started running, terrified, but could not outrun the small black hands that chased after him and took hold of everything they could; his arms, legs, head, neck and some even wound their way around his clothes, grasping the creases in his shirt. They dragged him through the gaping doorway, kicking and screaming.

He saw _everything_. He saw the past, the present, endless possibilities of what might have been and of what could yet be. He learned about One and All, the web of life that connects every living thing in the universe. The information poured ceaselessly into his head, his physical body being pulled apart by the angular black hands even as he reached out to clutch frantically at his mother's soft palm, the indistinct figure mirroring his action until everything around him turned white. He stood there, breathing heavily; hand still outstretched, feet wide apart, reaching for something no longer there, something he would never be able to touch. He stood, frozen, then turned to Truth, desperation clear on his face and in his golden eyes.

"Send me back!" and then he added on, almost to himself, "We were so close. _I _was so close."

"Ah, but you have seen all you can for the price you have paid, young al-che-mist,"

"P-price?" Ed's eyes were wide, his body language screaming fear and uncertainty.

"Why, _this_, of course!" Truth replied, lifting its left leg and waving it around. Ed's hands shot down to the stump of his leg, pain-filled gasps escaping his lips. Truth was suddenly _there_, right in front of him as he turned, grinning with every tooth picked out in perfect detail. It quoted the law of equivalent exchange, then Ed was returned to his home, sprawled out on the floor with a bleeding stump in place of his sacrificed limb.

He opened his eyes, previously squeezed tight by his screams of agony, and saw his younger brother's empty clothes before turning to face the centre of their circle, having dragged himself over with his blood stained hands, searching it after the light produced by the reaction had faded.

"Mum… mum, _please_…" he stopped as his eyes focused, seeing whatever it was they had created stretch out an arm, the hand flopping down to the floor. It was inhuman, ribs overgrown to create a bony thicket above the chest, canine teeth elongated to form an animalistic snarl. "No, this- this wasn't what we wanted!"

It was _all his fault_; he had forced his mother to suffer again, even worse than before, and his brother had gone. All that was left were his clothes lying on the floor in the position Al had been in when the Truth took his body. He dragged himself across the floor, resolve hardened. A suit of armour was toppled to the floor, helmet skittering away to lie a few metres off and he screamed out to Truth.

"Give him back! Take anything! Anything you want! Take my leg, my arm, my heart; _anything! _Just give him back; he's my little brother; he's all I have left!" the final word was punctuated with the slap of his hands as, for the first time in his life, he transmuted without an array.

Pinako Rockbell heard the screams and saw the light of the initial transmutation and, as she drew closer to the Elrics' house, heard one final howl. It was a sound without hope, a wordless plea to the world, a scream of pain and loss and overwhelming anger. The old woman, their grandmother in all but blood, started to run. There was only one thing that could twist Ed's voice with such agony and that was if something had happened to Al, the only family he had left.

As she entered the house, all of her instincts were set off. '_WRONG!' _They screamed at her. She continued on through the house to what once was their father's study. As she got nearer to that room, the smell of blood, a metallic tang in the air, became stronger. Unease filled the pit of her stomach. What could have happened?

She went through the door and stopped in shock. All of the books that usually littered the floor had been stacked up in tidy heaps along the furthest wall. That, however, was the only order in the room. There was Ed, curled up in a ball next to a suit of armour lying lifelessly on the ground. His right sleeve and left trouser leg were soaked in blood and, on closer inspection, she saw with horror that those two limbs were missing. The boy had fallen unconscious from the blood loss.

There was no sign of Al. Nothing but a set of his clothes, shoes overturned, was in the old study. Her eyes were drawn to the centre of the chalk circle on the floor and her breath stopped in shock. _It was wrong._ _It was inhuman._ For some reason, inside her something knew that, no matter how hard she looked, she would not find Alphonse. Even if she were to search the whole house, turning everything upside down, she would see neither hide nor hair of the boy. She gathered the unconscious boy into her arms and reluctantly returned to her house.

"Winry!" she cried "Winry!"

"Granny? What's happened? Ed!"

"Quick! Get a tourniquet on his leg! I'll deal with his arm. Hurry!"

They worked hard to clamp and tie each artery and vein so he would not bleed out. All night they did their best to save the boy, wondering what had happened. Once they had finished, Pinako went back to the Elrics' – or should that be Elric's? – house and buried whatever it was they had created in the back garden, setting up a stone to mark the place. The sun was just cresting the horizon when she returned to her home for the second time that night, having searched long and hard for Alphonse without any success. She walked through to the room reserved for patients where Winry was sitting, watching over Edward, the boy looking small and fragile swathed in the crisp white sheets, the fabric dipping to reset on the mattress where his right arm and left leg should have been.

"Get some sleep, Winry," she softly ordered her granddaughter. "You'll do no good to him _or_ to you by depriving yourself of sleep."

She blinked, obscuring her tired blue eyes and briefly forgetting how to raise the lids. "Mmm? Yeah, yeah, I guess…" slowly, she stood up from her chair and made her way to her room.

For the whole day, Winry slept and Pinako kept watch on Ed. It wasn't until late evening, after Pinako and Winry had cleared away the remains of the meal neither of them had felt like eating, that he awoke. Winry was sitting next to Ed when he finally stirred.

"Al?" he murmured, "Al? You there?"

"I–it's Winry, Ed. How are you feeling?"

"Winry? Where's Al?"

She bit her lip, unsure of what to tell him. She knew all too well the pain of losing family, but she also knew that lying would cause more harm than good in the long run, if it did any good at all. "Ask granny Pinako later. Just tell me how you're feeling."

"OK, I guess. I – I can't feel my arm, though."

"Which one?"

"My right."

"Ah. Uh, Ed… You – you lost it. you lost your arm and your left leg."

"What?!" he was shocked into full wakefulness and forced himself into a sitting position. "No! No!" his golden eyes were wide and contained a maelstrom of emotion. Then, slowly, they dimmed. The whole night came back to him; finishing the transmutation circle, adding the ingredients that would become their mother, pressing his palms to the chalk lines, losing his leg, the Truth and failing to reclaim his brother's soul. The blaze of determination that had burned behind his eyes darkened as he processed the full horror of what he had done. Teas formed at the corners of his eyes, but he did not allow them to fall.

Winry opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, then closed it again. She finally made a decision and spoke. "I'll get Granny Pinako. She can check how you're doing,"

It was a full week before Pinako deemed him mentally ready to go in wheelchair and to leave the small room. By coincidence, that was the same day Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye arrived in Resembool and saw the evidence of the Elric Brothers' attempt at human transmutation. He hurried to where he was told he could find them, seething with anger. What had possessed them to make them break the taboo? How could anyone be so arrogant as to believe they could bring someone back without paying a heavy price?

He entered the automail fitter's home, a cold anger filling his being.

"Where are they? Where are the Elric brothers?" he demanded. In reply, the old woman sadly opened the door and ushered him through to see a small figure slumped in a wheelchair, dejection and utter defeat in every line of the body. Mustang was taken aback to see that at least one of the highly praised Elric brothers was a small boy.

He strode up to the chair and lifted the child to his eye level. "What did you do?" he demanded. "_What did you do?"_

The boy's only response was to lift dulled gold eyes to meet his own, then drop his head, averting his gaze. All this did was add fuel to the Flame's anger. Who knows what would have happened if, at that moment, Pinako Rockbell had not come through in search of a mug to make tea.

"What do you think you're doing?! Put him down; he's suffered enough for his mistake!"

Slowly, almost mechanically, Mustang's hand opened, releasing the young boy back into the chair. He closed his eyes, bowing his head and, at last, he began to cry. For the first time since he attempted human transmutation, for the first time after he lost his little brother and turned his mother into something inhuman, silent tears ran down the sides of his face.

Mustang stepped back and began the speech he had prepared, offering the ten year old boy in front of him a state certification, tempting him with a nearly unlimited research grant and the chance to find a way to get his limbs back.

As he and Hawkeye left for Resembool station to return to Eastern Command, she asked whether he thought Ed would join the military.

"Didn't you see? There was fire in his eyes." _But what type of fire?_ He wondered to himself. Edward Elric's eyes were those of someone who had nothing left to lose, for it had all been taken from him already.

Ed chose to have the automail surgery, never protesting, never shouting, showing almost no sign of the pain that had other men and women screaming in agony. He bore it all without complaint; the ports being put in, the fire that burned through him as the nerves were individually attached to the wires, coughing up blood as he pushed himself beyond his limits, punishing his body. He managed to cut the recovery time from three years down to ten months due to pure determination, all the while preparing himself for the annual State Examinations.

He made history as the youngest State Alchemist at the age of eleven, passing the written examination comfortably and almost committing an act of treason in the practical.

Once he received his title, he cut all ties to his 'past life'. He removed the alchemy tomes from his house and, except for those and one picture of Alphonse, he burned it and everything inside in a symbolic move. When Winry cried for him, he turned away. He could afford no relationships, no ties that could hold him back from his goal of regaining his brother. She was his mechanic, nothing more.

After he was assigned to Colonel Mustang, Major Edward 'Fullmetal' Elric became the model soldier. He followed orders to the letter, kept a tight rein on his expenses and did not protest when he was fitted for his (extra small) uniform. In another universe, he would have opposed every second, destroying related (and other) paperwork, 'forgetting' appointments and, when he was finally dragged, kicking and screaming, to the military tailor's, causing so much havoc with his alchemy and his *unique* sense of style that he would have been thrown out, having driven the head tailor to tears. At eleven, however, he was the perfect dog of the military. He did not wear his black jacket or his leather trousers and he had never transmuted what should have been his trademark red coat. The only link that he had kept to his past was the single photograph of Alphonse, his last remaining family, the younger brother he had failed to protect, carefully pressed between two sheets of alchemically created and reinforced glass.

He slept no more than the bare minimum. His sleep was filled with accusing eyes and, in his nightmares he lost his brother over and over again, and tortured his mother with the transmutation. One night, not long after he had been state certified for a year, that changed. He began to have dreams of another life. The first one was him taking the State Exams again, but as a twelve year old. In his dream, he wore a long scarlet coat with a strange cross on his back. It was the same symbol that alchemist from years ago had tattooed on her collarbone. Over the next few years, he had similar dreams. Dreams in which an animated suit of armour called him 'brother' using Al's voice and dreams of a past in which he was taught by that alchemist – Izumi, in his subconscious. In that world, he had succeeded in bonding Al's soul to the armour and it had afterwards taken him a full year to acclimatise to the automail. In that world, they were searching for the philosopher's stone to return themselves to their original bodies.

Preferring the dream world, he withdrew further from reality. He was coldly civil to everyone he met and his smiles, already rare, stopped altogether. Few noticed the change. Only two were worried about it and about Edward's emerging brand of personal philosophy. By the time he was fourteen, he firmly believed that the only way to peace was to understand each other's pain and to experience their suffering. When Shou Tucker turned his own daughter into a chimera, he almost killed the man; stopping right on the edge of leaving the man mortally wounded and merely permanently crippled him. That bastard deserved all he got from the military, he deserved to suffer. Two days later, when he was targeted by Scar, Mustang and all the other gathered soldiers were witness to Edward unhesitatingly plunging his automail blade into Scar's heart, golden eyes hardened and as cold as ice. The Flame Alchemist faltered. He had seen eyes like that before, in Ishbal. They were the same eyes Zolf J Kimblee had before he started to enjoy the carnage, death and pain he wrought as the Crimson Alchemist. They were the eyes of a man who would allow no-one to stand in his way, and who would ruthlessly cut anyone down if they did so. As he cautiously made his way over to Edward, a strange wheezing sound echoed through the street. No-one noticed the large blue box disappear from a nearby alleyway.

When the Crimson and Fullmetal Alchemists met, up at Briggs, and Kimblee ordered the younger man to 'carve a crest of blood', the teen did not hesitate; Father had promised to him that he would be given a philosopher's stone to retrieve his brother, whose faded photograph he still carried around with him in a pocket close to his heart. All he had to do was comply with Father's plans. With Kimblee, he made a strategy to eliminate the Drachman troops across the border. Together, Kimblee and Edward pretended to defect and, with the help of the Briggs soldiers, dyed the snow crimson with Drachman blood.

All in all, Zolf felt rather proud of his new protégé and, in the panic caused by the attack, nobody remarked on a pulsing, wheezing sound in an abandoned corridor of the Briggs fortress.

_Because of Al's absence, Father needed to 'create' another sacrifice. He chose Zolf J. Kimblee. Edward was never on the run, his friends were not taken hostage – he had none – and Maes Hughes was never shot after making a discovery, because he was never led to the secret that, in another universe, would have killed him. Mustang's team was not taken hostage; he kept them all with him in Central, but he found out on his own that Fuhrer King Bradley was a homunculus and chose to keep the secret to himself, not knowing who to trust._

It was the Promised Day. Edward was in Central, as ordered by Father. When the city-wide circle opened up, he had been sipping at a cup of tea in a small café, ignoring the commotion of Mustang's attempted coup d'état.

In Father's lair were himself, his own father; Van Hohenheim, and that same alchemist who had refused to teach him and his brother! In the world of his dreams, that was where they diverged; although they had not listened to her warnings against human transmutation, he had known enough to bond his brother's soul to the armour.

"You!" he pointed at her. "You're the alchemist who refused to teach us!" _It's your fault my brother's being held hostage by the Truth!_

"And I'm glad I refused, if you went and became a dog of the military!"

"Edward?" his father asked, cutting off the argument before it could become deadly. "Where's Alphonse?"

Edward bit his lip, his eyes burning with fury. "He's gone," he said hollowly. "Since just before his ninth birthday."

"What happened?"

"The Gate. We tried to bring Mum back because _you weren't there!_ You didn't even turn up for her _funeral_! Do you know how many letters we sent to tell you, to try to find you? Do you?!"

Hohenheim was taken aback by the anger that built as his son spoke, the hatred in his voice and his face as he looked at his father.

The family reunion was broken short by the arrival of Mustang and Kimblee. The colonel had been blinded and Kimblee had lost both his hands. The stumps of his wrists were spurting blood, droplets of which were landing a good distance away. Father walked towards him calmly, lifted the stumps of the Crimson Alchemist's wrists and, with a crackle of energy, the bleeding stopped.

"It would be most annoying if one of you were to die on me, especially considering how much trouble I have gone to in order to get you all here today,"

Flailing around in his new personal darkness, Mustang tripped over a pipe in his attempt to find the origin of the voice. Only Izumi and Hohenheim tried to help him; Kimblee had spotted his protégé and, ignoring his fellow officer, sauntered over to strike up a conversation. Edward had never cared about the colonel in the first place.

"So, Ed," Kimblee opened, "you don't seem all that surprised to be here."

"Yeah," he replied nonchalantly, flicking a piece of dust off the bright blue of his uniform. "That Father guy promised me a philosopher's stone to get my brother back if I co-operated with him and his plans."

"You knew this was going to happen, and you said _nothing_?" Mustang's head whipped around to face the pair, brows furrowed in anger over his unseeing white eyes. "You _knew_ this would happen to us?"

"Yes, how ironic. The man who would lead a country loses his sight; he will never be able to see the fulfilment of his aim. The man who revels in destruction has lost the tools he used to create such chaos; his hands and, more specifically, the transmutation circles tattooed onto his palms. The woman who tried to return her dead child to herself lost all hope of having children in the future and, finally, the boy who longed for his mother's embrace lost the last family he had left."

"I'll get him back when you come through on your part of the deal, though, right?"

"Of course," he replied emotionlessly. "But now it is time." Black tendrils shot out and wrapped themselves around the five alchemists, arranging them in a circle which Father activated.

As integral parts of the array, they were aware of everything. They could feel the country-wide transmutation circle ripping the souls out of everyone in Amestris; men, women, children. A new-born baby and a girl from Xing searching for the very same thing that was now in Edward's reach; the philosopher's stone.

Mustang, Hohenheim and Izumi fought it every step of the way. Kimblee relished the fear and pain and chaos caused as each soul was torn from its body and compressed into a stone. Edward just accepted it. When he had received his silver pocket watch emblazoned with the Amestrian crest, he had promised to himself that he would do anything to get his brother back, no matter what – or who – had to be sacrificed. Before Father went up above ground, he coughed up a small blood red shard.

"Five souls. That should be enough."

Edward grinned, wearing a triumphant and slightly unhinged smile. At last! He would have his precious baby brother back. While everyone else chased after Father, Edward was too wrapped up in his own glee to notice. Holding the stone in his hands, he clapped them together, concentrating on the circle engraved in his mind.

Everything was white. In front of him was a figure defined only by the shadows it cast, except for its right arm and left leg.

"Hello again, young al-che-mist. I take it you are here for your brother. What do you have to offer me?"

"This!" he held out the stone. "Five souls in exchange for one body. More than equivalent, I'd say."

Again, he was shown the Truth and he was shown more knowledge than he had before. Again, he felt almost as if his head would burst. This time, however, he had an overall gain rather than a loss.

"Al!" he shouted joyfully. "Al! You're back, you're here, you're _alive_!" he engulfed his brother in a hug.

The younger boy was emaciated, every bone showing, hair long and fingernails ragged.

"Brother? What have you _done?_" his voice was full of horror.

"I did it for _you_, Al! I did it to get you back, so you could live!"

"You – you've all but sold your soul, brother! Look at yourself! The Ed I knew would have fought tooth and nail to avoid uniform, and yet you wear it so proudly. The Ed I knew would never have killed all of those people at Briggs. And… the Ed I knew, _my _Ed, my big brother, would have done anything to avoid using the souls of others. What happened to you?"

Ed's eyes opened wide and he looked at himself and at his actions. _What have I done? __What have I become?_

A wheezing, grinding sound echoed through the pipe-filled room. A box a few shades darker than Ed's uniform materialised, fading in and out of reality. Ed crept up to it and, just before the door opened, clapped his hands and transmuted his automail arm into a sword. A tall man, full of energy, bounded out, looking completely unfazed by the razor sharp blade pointed at him.

"Who are you? How did you get in here? How does that box work?!"

"No time to spare for introductions! And it would take _far _too long to explain. Get in quickly!"

"To that small box?" the scepticism in his voice was so strong, it was almost a physical thing.

"Small box? That, young man, is my TARDIS! Time And Relative Dimensions In Space! My time travelling machine!"

"How?"

"Ahh, wibbley-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff… Chop, chop! Hurry up!"

"But- Al!"

"If you come with me, it'll re-write time to how it _should_ be. If this works, your brother will never have gone."

"Go with him, Ed. If you don't, I won't forgive you! Stop this all from happening. You have to make things _right_!"

Without further hesitation, Ed followed the man into the box, transmuting the blade back into its normal shape. He stepped through the door and stopped in shock.

"It's bigger on the inside…" he said, voice filled with wonder and confusion.

"Focus now, Ed. Have you been having any dreams of a different life?"

"Yeah… How did you know?"

"Ah, those dreams are your life as it _should _have been. Where do they diverge? I need the place and the date."

"I can't remember the exact date, but it was near the start of February 1906. I – _we _– asked Izumi Curtis to teach us and, in my dreams, rather than giving up, persisted until she accepted us."

The Doctor nodded. "You're going to need something different to wear." He pointed away from the huge round console. "Go up _that _stairway, take the first left, the second right and continue straight on until you reach the red door on your right to reach the wardrobe. Grab whatever you want and,_ please_, get out of your uniform."

The teenaged boy made his way through the narrow corridors, weaving from side to side with the momentum of the ship. Not far from the entrance, he came across a small black jacket with white piping, a black tank top and leather trousers; the same things – without the red coat – that he wore in his dreams. Underneath them on the rack, he found a large pair of boots with red soles, perfect for kicking things with. A small smile grew on his face as he reached into a pocket that he _knew _would hold a red hair tie and reached up behind him to plait his long hair that he had previously worn up in perfect accordance to military guidelines. He made his way back to the control room and stood, somewhat self-consciously, a small distance away from the Doctor.

The Time Lord finished putting the coordinates into the TARDIS and turned around, a beaming smile bursting across his face.

"Much better! Shouldn't be long until we land, now!"

Before he had finished his sentence, the motion stopped with a juddering finality.

_The river was bursting its banks, defying the combined efforts of the gathered inhabitants of Resembool to hold it back. A woman strode through the shallow floodwater, clapped her hands and sent large earth walls up to hem the water in. Two boys swamped in their waterproof coats looked at each other in excitement and began to run forwards, before being stopped by a man in a pinstriped suit and a long light brown coat who had put his hand on Ed's shoulder._

"Some advice for your life; never take 'no' for an answer."

_His friend, a short man in a black jacket wearing tinted glasses with his long hair in a plait, turned around, a wry smile on his face. _"Listen to him, kid. I had to learn that the hard way, and I suffered for it. She won't teach you unless you pester her."_ Hearing this, the other man grinned infectiously, brown eyes dancing._

"Whatever. C'mon, Al! That alchemist isn't going to pester herself!"

_Again, Izumi sent them flying. This time, they came back and latched themselves on to her arm. This time, she learned that they were parentless and accepted them as her students, setting their world back on the right track. The scene in front of Ed faded, the rushing river and cold air replaced with the interior of a stuffy crimson tent._

_**So, what do you think of my first one? Did I do a good job of it? Why not leave your answer in a review?**_


End file.
